Deray McKesson
I think people who are not from here think the Inner Harbor is the only center for culture or fun in the city, and there's so much more to Baltimore. The Harbor's a beautiful place, but there are so many gems embedded in other communities that don't get as much visibility.
I was a teacher. I also worked at Harlem Children's Zone. I moved back to Baltimore and opened up an after-school, out-of-school program on the west side and then worked in two public school districts, in Baltimore and Minneapolis.
Skills acquisition is really at the heart of what it means to learn.
Some people are more interested in fighting than winning.
As a protester, I protested because I had to, not because it was exciting. I don't want to get tear-gassed again.
When I think about protest, I worry so much that people think about it only as standing in the streets. And I say that as someone who has been standing in the streets of cities across the country - but at the root of it is this idea of telling the truth in public.
The history of blackness is also a history of erasure.
Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional.
You are enough to start a movement. Individual people can come together around things that they know are unjust. And they can spark change.
I think people are uncomfortable talking about the racist history of this country and what we need to do to undo the impact of racism.
It's important that people press from the outside. It's important that people are able to make change from the inside. Both of those things are important. Protest is fundamentally a political act.Collection: People
I've seen optimism because I grew up in communities of recovery where people put their lives back together and find tomorrows that they didn't think would be there. That fundamentally changed my life and is so much of where my hope comes from.Collection: Recovery
I don't want to live in a world where Donald Trump is the President. He is not doing anything in Baltimore, but I am dedicated to using whatever platform I have to make sure that he is not the President. This is not simply a disagreement about ideas. It's a disagreement about values, and the values that he espouses are values of bigotry and hate, and that isn't OK.Collection: Hate
Donald Trump is dangerous. The truth is that the bigotry and hatred that he speaks have real consequences in people's lives.Collection: Real
Leadership means making sure that people are adequately skilled, making sure people are earning a living wage, making sure people have access to resources. That's not sexy, it doesn't sound great at a rally or a forum, but that is actually the work that it will take to change cities. We know that.Collection: Sexy
When our response to all trauma is to call the police, then that gets us into a cycle of perpetuating trauma. Mental health trauma is different from somebody breaking into a store. Those are not the same things, and our response has to be different.Collection: Police
So much of what people think about when they think about health is primary care, but health is so much more than that. Health is about the decisions you make everyday. It's about where you sleep. It's about are you exercising, it's about what you eat.Collection: Sleep
Not only do we need to focus on classrooms, but adult literacy is a huge issue in historically marginalized communities. That's a crisis, and it's one that you can't see.Collection: Focus